racy for the assassination of William III, it was
impossible not to hope that Sedley's boastful tongue might have
brought him sufficiently under suspicion to be kept for a while
under lock and key; but though he did not appear at Fareham, there
was reason to suppose that he was as usual haunting the taverns and
cockpits of Portsmouth.

No one went much abroad that winter. Sir Philip, perhaps from
anxiety and fretting, had a fit of the gout, and Anne kept herself
and her charge within the garden or the street of the town. In fact
there was a good deal of danger on the roads. The neighbourhood of
the seaport was always lawless, and had become more so since Sir
Philip had ceased to act as Justice of the Peace, and there were
reports of highway robberies of an audacious kind, said to be
perpetrated by a band calling themselves the Black Gang, under a
leader known as Piers Pigwiggin, who were alleged to be half
smuggler, half Jacobite, and to have their headquarters somewhere in
the back of the Isle of Wight, in spite of the Governor, the
terrible Salamander, Lord Cutts, who was, indeed, generally absent
with the army.

CHAPTER XXVII: THE VAULT

"Heaven awards the vengeance due."

COWPER.

The weary days had begun to lengthen before the door of the hall was
flung open, and little Phil, forgetting his bow at the door, rushed
in, "Here's a big packet from foreign parts! Harry had to pay ever
so much for it."

"I have wellnigh left off hoping," sighed the poor mother. "Tell me
the worst at once."

"No fear, my lady," said her husband. "Thank God! 'Tis our son's
hand."

There was the silence for a moment of intense relief, and then the
little boy was called to cut the silk and break the seals.

Joy ineffable! There were three letters--for Master Philip
Archfield, for Mistress Anne Jacobina Woodford, and for Sir Philip
himself. The old gentleman glanced over it, caught the words
'better,' and 'coming home,' then failed to read through tears of
joy as before through tears of sorrow, and was fain to hand the
sheet to his old friend to be read aloud, while little Philip,
handling as a treasure the first letter he had ever received, though
as yet he was unable to decipher it, stood between his grandfather's
knees listening as Dr. Woodford read--

DEAR AND HONOURED SIR--I must ask your pardon for leaving you
without tidings so long, but while my recovery still hung in
doubt I thought it would only distre